MORNING brought refreshment, and with it new hope and courage as Oswald had foretold. At breakfast he put a proposal to Peregrine frankly enough.

“An’ you are so minded, why not bide with me a time. Men term me a recluse, and so in a measure I am, finding little congenial in the majority of mankind. I should find no constraint in your presence. We could talk when the mood was on us, and—better test of congeniality—keep silence when we willed. Have you mind to try the partnership for a while?”

Peregrine gave willing assent. Already, as seen, he had found rest in the man’s confidence, a healthfulness in his quiet sanity. He saw a haven in the forest cabin, one where he would abide most gladly. To have no fear of going a day, or even more, hungry was something of a novelty to him. The search for food sharpens a man’s wits with regard to attaining the necessities of life, but leaves less room for the development of other faculties. Here was sufficient for the needs of the body. His mind at rest on this score, it began to expand in other directions. His love of Nature returned to him, as it had returned for a brief space on his leaving Dieuporte. In this renewal of his love he realized how long it had been absent.

Tracing his way slowly backwards, he came to the point where the love had first waned; saw it in his absorption in the human, namely Isabel. Up to this point there had been freedom of spirit; here he first saw his bondage, realized himself enslaved; slave of the woman at Belisle; slave of luxury at Castle Syrtes; slave of Menippus; and, lastly, slave of an idea. In this last he was, however, none so certain of the bondage; of the former slavery he was very sure.

Now he felt his spirit free. The intimacy of Nature again surrounded him; he found sweetness in her breath; in her still, sunny days, despite their cold; in her frosty, starlit nights. He found himself watching the brown buds slowly swelling on the trees, gazing with something akin to reverence at the first pale primrose lifting a shy face among last year’s withered dÉbris, touching the tiny fragile flower of the wood sorrel. The clean healthiness of the forest absorbed him; his spirit was at one with the tender life awaking around him.

A new idea came to him now. Up to a point he acquiesced with Oswald in the thought that the woman would make herself known to them at her own time; yet he saw himself fitting his spirit for the meeting. In this he believed himself in a measure seeking her. You see him humble; no longer hot afoot to the chase in his own way, striving to attain to her by the force of his own will. He never for an instant lost sight on the thought of her. Now and again he fancied her eyes watching him; prayed her then humbly enough to make her presence known at her own time.

Oswald, half laughing, told him he held her so close in thought no sight of her was needed to him now. To which Peregrine replied briefly:

“Belief in her may be good; but sight of her will be better.”

In his belief he now surpassed his one-time mentor. He looked daily,—even momentarily,—to her appearance, where Oswald was content to leave it at months or even years ahead. It was sufficient to him that she existed. The mere knowledge, without perpetual watching, was not enough for Peregrine.

He saw too great passivity of mind in Oswald. Though in a measure he recognized its excellence, his own spirit was a-tingle for greater action. The man’s quiet certainty of the woman’s existence was at once an anodyne and an irritant to him. While Oswald’s belief quickened his own belief, he yet saw something lukewarm in his lack of action. This Oswald guessed at, rather by intuition than by actual spoken word from Peregrine. For his part, he saw a certain weakness in Peregrine’s constant expectancy. He watched him walking alert in the forest, his eyes roving from side to side.

“I have told you,” he said once quietly, “that effort on your part is useless. She will come at her own time.”

“Truly you say so,” returned Peregrine, “and at the first I had confidence in your assurance. Now, I know not fully how to make my meaning clear; but to my thinking she bids me still seek her; awaits a further effort on my part.”

Oswald smiled. “There imagination has you in thrall. On your own showing you have pursued her long without avail. Rest in her spirit which you know around you, and await sight of her quietly as I do. Your constant expectancy of her coming brings disquietude to your mind.”

Reasonable enough argument, and yet one which Peregrine could not bring himself fully to accept.

“Look at the matter dispassionately,” said Oswald. “You dreamed the existence of this woman. Knowing not whether the dream were truth or reality, you pursued her for over two years. The pursuit brought with it disappointment, and worse. Now I tell you of a certainty your dream was true, and show you the means by which the truth shall become fact to you. In seeking her, in your constant watching for her, you drive her from you. I know not why this is so; nevertheless I know it to be true.”

Peregrine was silent. Here was apparent certainty presented to him on the one hand; as the pull against it was his own inner conviction, which he had yet more than once proved illusion, so it seemed. For the time he let the matter be; came again to rest in the strength of his comradeship, and the sweetness of Nature round him.

So the days passed. March came with strong clean winds blowing through the forest, with daffodils tossing golden heads by brook-sides, a very wealth of gladness. With her passing came quieter April bringing sunshine and rain, and the scent of growing things in the forest. The birds mated and sang; the whole place was alive and buoyant.

One night Peregrine awakened suddenly. At the first waking he fancied Oswald to have called to him, but his quiet regular breathing showed him sleeping. Peregrine raised himself on his elbow and looked around.

The faintest grey light fell through the square opening which served as window. He sank back prepared for further sleep, when on a sudden he found himself more fully awake. He sat up, and again looked round the hut. The bunches of herbs dangling from their string looked ghostly in the grey light. Oswald, lying on a bed of bracken, slept soundly.

Peregrine got up from his couch, donned his clothes, barely conscious that he did so. His mind was busily astir; though as yet his thoughts had found no conscious articulation. Being clad, he took a chunk of bread from a shelf. This much he knew his host would have freely given him. Then he moved softly to the door, opened it.

The forest lay in the quiet which reigns most supremely betwixt night and dawn. For some moments he stood looking towards the great trees, then stepped without, closed the door softly behind him.

Now, an’ you were to ask me for reasons as to why Peregrine left the hut at this very moment, I must e’en tell you frankly that where fifty instincts urged him to the move there was no one definite reason. This may seem folly; but verily, to my thinking, there are moments in a man’s life when he does better to obey the lightest instinct than the closest reasoning. We are come now to a time in our Jester’s wanderings when I see myself penning that which actually befell him, rather than the thoughts which led him to action. It may be that you will guess at those thoughts, having had some such of your own. An’ you cannot trace them in his actions, I see not any words of mine setting them clearly before you.

Having put some half-dozen miles or so between himself and the hut, he began to feel sleepy. Coming to a mossy stretch beneath a great oak, he lay down. Three minutes saw him wrapped in slumber, and he slept soundly.

When he awakened it was high noon. The sun fell through the oak branches, clear upon the place where he lay. For a time longer he rested, revelling in the warmth of its beams. Anon he sat up; ate a portion of the bread he had brought with him. All around him was intensely still. Before him were massed bluebells, a soft luminous carpet. Brilliant nearer him, they lost themselves anon in the hazy distances among the trees. He sat a while gazing at them.

He wandered through the forest that day; at night made it his resting-place.